10 tri tips for large party!! Help!!

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Ralflo

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Original poster
Aug 6, 2022
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I would love to hear your opinions.
This is my first attempt at more than 2 tri tips at once.
My idea for less stress and more accurate serving time is:
Smoke at 225° and pull at 130° - 135°
Wrap in butcher paper and keep it hot in a portable ice chest for 30 - 60 min, or longer if needed.
Then, 20- 30 min. before mealtime: Fast hot sear, slice, and serve.
My thoughts are:
The fast sear would also heat it up but not raise the internal temp.
No need for resting after searing (already rested).
Much easier to meet the target mealtime.
So, what are your thoughts, advice, and experience with this? Thanks!
Note: I was also planning on a dry brine on rack in fridge for 24 hours.
Then dry rub and rest to room temp before grilling.
 
I would love to hear your opinions.
This is my first attempt at more than 2 tri tips at once.
My idea for less stress and more accurate serving time is:
Smoke at 225° and pull at 130° - 135°
Wrap in butcher paper and keep it hot in a portable ice chest for 30 - 60 min, or longer if needed.
Then, 20- 30 min. before mealtime: Fast hot sear, slice, and serve.
My thoughts are:
The fast sear would also heat it up but not raise the internal temp.
No need for resting after searing (already rested).
Much easier to meet the target mealtime.
So, what are your thoughts, advice, and experience with this? Thanks!
Note: I was also planning on a dry brine on rack in fridge for 24 hours.
Then dry rub and rest to room temp before grilling.

If going by your approach, I would smoke the Tri Tip to an IT of 120* degrees and then follow the steps you posted above. During the wrap and rest, the tri tip will continue to cook a bit on its own a few degrees higher. Smoking a tri tip to 130-135* degrees will take it past that steak like tenderness and it’ll be very tuff too chew, especially if you sear it at the end of your cook. You do have a few other options to consider though. You can sear it first and then slow smoke it to a IT of 125*-130* degrees with great results or you can go outside the box and bbq it like a brisket. FYI… A Tri Tip is a very forgiving piece of beef, where in that it can also be cooked like a brisket with great results. The texture and look will be like a brisket flat and not like a traditional Tri Tip in look/ appearance though. If you want your Tri Tip like a streak, don’t take the IT past 120* degrees before the sear. .02. As for the rubs and seasonings, don’t over think it. A light coat of melted butter and a small touch of Worcestershire sauce, then a dry rub consisting of Salt, black pepper and garlic powder or use a good Tri Tip rub like “Boars Night Out” Spicy White Lightning rub or John Henry’s Mojave Garlic Pepper rub… Post back how everything turns out and Good luck.


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Also concur, you should pull earlier. At what temp can vary depending on how long you let each tri-tip rest open on the counter in order to stop the cooking before wrapping. If straight from the smoker to wrap and rest then certainly pull at 120º. Serving temp at 135º-137º is a very nice med-rare and this is what I shoot for. Obviously how long each tri-tip is hot seared also comes into play. We usually run each side between 2-3 minutes but thats after pulling @125º and resting for 5-10 minutes open on the counter before hot searing.

Personally, we normally follow the traditional Santa Maria style which calls for 2 parts garlic, 1 part each of salt & pepper. Good luck and certainly let us know how things went.
 
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Good plan but as stated by the others pull it earlier.

I generally tend to pull at 115 and then do a reverse sear on a screaming hot grill.
 
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Thanks for all of the advice!
(So, I understand the standard reverse sear method of pulling at @120° and 10-15 min later searing to 130° - 135°. By searing right away, you are continuing to raise the internal temp.)
Here's the part I'm wondering about:
With this idea of resting it in a cooler, it seems like if I pulled it at 120°, and it was wrapped/rested for up to an hour, maybe the IT would fall to @110(?) - then, if I reverse sear up to 130°, wouldn't it be overdone except in the middle (since I'm starting the sear at such a low temp)?
 
Why not just cook them over white-hot wood coals hot and fast, they turn out amazing and take less than 30 minutes.

You can buy a bag of Mesquite or Oak wood coals, and they would turn out amazing. Just S.P.O.G and white-hot coals is all you need. Stay at the grill and keep the roasts turning, start at one end of the grill and start flipping them until they are done, it's fun and easy. No need to smoke or sear or reverse sear.
It will be the best T.T. you ever ate!!! Make up a Chimichurri and serve with fresh homemade horseradish on the side for those that don't like chimichurri.

You can cook up 5 at a time on a 22'' Weber and rest the first 5 while the second batch is grilling.

Good luck.
Dan.
 
There is one major thought flaw in all the advice and assumptions: that tri tip will be tough to chew if taken above 135°F internal temp. Nope. I've grilled and smoked four figures worth of tri tips over 40 years. They remain tender at 120°, 140°F, 150°F, 160°F, up to 190°F. I've found this to be true for both "Select" grade and "Choice or better" grade.

They are steak-like below about 140°F and will still retain some pinkness even to 145°F. They start having a roast beef-like flavor and texture between about 150°F and 175°F. Then they morph into a tender, fatty brisket flat above that.

Decide the rareness you want. If you want a lot of rare, smoke to 110°-115°F IT, rest, then reverse sear over VERY high heat for 5 mins a side. Medium? Take to 125°F, rest, sear. Heck, with ten tri tips, experiment with one or two by taking them to a higher temp. You'll be amazed.

The nice thing about a TT is one roast will have more than one doneness zone due to the way the meat is shaped. Tri tips are not just forgiving, they are the chameleon of beef.

Happy TTs!

Ray

Oh, and forgot about that "take them to room temp" advice that is everywhere. No 2.5-3lb tri tip will reach room temp in an hour on the counter. I've tested it. You might reach 48°-52°F IT if your fridge isn't much below 40°F. Just go fridge to smoker. It's simpler and won't risk someone getting sick. Doubt me? Test it with one of your ten TTs.

Montreal Steak Seasoning has been my dry brine and TT rub of choice for decades.
 
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You aren't going to get anybody sick from resting whole muscle beef on the counter, bringing it close to room temp.
Those laws don't apply to whole muscle beef.

That being said, I wouldn't worry about bringing them up to room temp. I've grilled literally many thousands of T.T. at large events throughout the years. We would pick up the meat from the supplier the night before the event. And the chilled roasts would be placed into ice chests with no ice. It would be held until grilling time the next day. The chilled beef would still be 50 to 60* come grilling time. This event was called The Clayton Round Up, it was an event our town used to hold thanking all the local cattle ranchers for everything they did for the community throughout the years, such as donating to churches, schools, youth groups, men's and women's clubs. The food service was monitored by local Chef's to make sure safe food handling practices were maintained. Seeing this was a public fundraising event, everything had to be legit.

I highly recommend buying a few T.T. and doing a practice run, to find the cooking method that suits your taste and cooking style. I've literally cooked and eaten TT that was cooked in damn near every imaginable way. For most people's taste, the grilled over hot coals is the preferred method of cooking when dealing with a large number of roasts, you won't be sorry. And I promise you that people will be impressed.

Good luck.
Dan
 
Whatever method or technique you decide on.... take a few minutes to get comfortable with slicing. Tri-tip changes grain, and you have to account for that change when slicing.
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